About this item
Set between Cubas twenty years apart, Havana native Teresa Dovalpage's new mystery features an unusual detective - an ex-cop turned Santera priest and a familiar face from her acclaimed crime fiction debut, Death Comes in through the Kitchen. Juan, a Cuban construction worker who has settled in Albuquerque, returns to Havana for the first time since fleeing Cuba by raft twenty years ago. He is traveling with his American wife, Sharon, hoping to catch up with Victor, his best friend from college - and, unbeknownst to Sharon, discover what has become of two of his ex-girlfriends, Elsa and Rosita. Juan is surprised to discover that Victor has become Victoria, and runs a popular drag show at the local hot spot Caf. Arabia. Elsa has married a wealthy foreigner, and Rosita, still single, works at the Havana cemetery. When one of these women turns up dead, it will cost Padrino, a Santera priest and former detective on the Havana police force, more than he expects to untangle the group's lies and hunt down a killer.
About the Author
Teresa Dovalpage was born in Havana and now lives in Hobbs, where she is a Spanish and ESL professor at New Mexico Junior College.She has published nine novels and three collections of short stories. Her English-language novels are A Girl like Che Guevara (Soho Press, 2004) , Habanera, a Portrait of a Cuban Family (Floricanto Press, 2010) , and Death Comes in Through the Kitchen (Soho Crime, 2018) , a culinary mystery with authentic Cuban recipes.Her novellas Las Muertas de la West Mesa (The West Mesa Murders, based on a real event) , Sisters in Tea/ Hermanas en Té and Death by Smartphone/ Muerte por Smartphone were published in serialized format by Taos News.In her native Spanish she has authored the novels Muerte de un murciano en La Habana (Death of a Murcian in Havana, Anagrama, 2006, a runner-up for the Herralde Award in Spain) , El difunto Fidel (The late Fidel, Renacimiento, 2011, that won the Rincon de la Victoria Award in Spain in 2009) , Posesas de La Habana (Haunted ladies of Havana, PurePlay Press, 2004) , La Regenta en La Habana (Edebe Group, Spain, 2012) , Orfeo en el Caribe (Atmósfera Literaria, Spain, 2013) , and El retorno de la expatriada (The Expat's Return, Egales, Spain, 2014) .
